With its climate, soil structure, seas on three sides, lakes, dams, rivers and springs, our country is very fortunate in terms of aquaculture potential. Our country has a coastline of 8,333 km and, including the seas, approximately 26 million hectares of area suitable for aquaculture production. Of this area, approximately 95% consists of seas (24,607,200 ha), 1.3% of reservoirs (342,377 ha), 3.5% of natural lakes (906,118 ha) and about 0.1% (15,500 ha) of ponds.
The total surface area of natural lakes, ponds and reservoirs, which make up about 5% of Türkiye's aquaculture production area and whose number grows every day with dams and ponds built for irrigation and energy, is 1,263,995 ha. In addition, there are approximately 178,000 km of rivers.
The four different seas surrounding Türkiye, each with its own character, provide great richness in fish species.
– 165 in the Black Sea, – 200 in the Sea of Marmara,
Although around 300 fish species are said to live in the Aegean Sea and around 500 in the Mediterranean, many of these species are on the verge of extinction.
In terms of aquaculture production, Türkiye ranks thirty-third among 161 countries in the world, fourth among European Union countries and third among Mediterranean countries. Since the production potential of seafood — the most important food source for closing the animal protein gap in human nutrition — is not unlimited and production cannot be increased continuously as the population grows, the amount of seafood per person will start to decline beyond a certain level and demand will be limited by production.
Seafood, which until a few years ago was mostly consumed fresh, is now offered to consumers after being subjected to processing and preservation technologies such as chilling, processing, packaging, salting, canning, smoking, drying and brining. In addition to blast freezing and rapid chilling technologies, applications for further processing, canning, smoking and producing different products with new technologies have also become widespread in Türkiye in recent years.
At this stage, we would like to share with you many new technology applications in terms of preparation, processing and packaging. With these applications, which we have started to use in some sectors, we are opening the door to a whole new world for you…
For perishable ready-to-eat/ready-to-use foods, product safety through combinations of minimal processing and storage under controlled heating/cooling conditions is of great importance to prevent the growth of pathogenic organisms and ensure microbial safety.
Minimally processed foods are produced using a range of modern technologies that aim to change the food as little as possible while providing sufficient shelf life from producer to consumer. Food products containing little or no preservatives and subjected to mild heat treatment to retain a freshly cooked taste are creating a whole new concept in ready-food consumption.
Once we see that adding value to seafood is an inevitable reality, we believe it is high time to prepare an action plan and set out with a professional team.